Shipping carriers, such as UPS®, Inc., transport a wide variety of products on behalf of their customers. In most cases, a carrier's customers are either a sender (or “consignor”) or a receiver (or “consignee”). As the terms are used herein, a “sender” refers to the person or entity sending the product to a receiver via the carrier, and the “receiver” is the person or entity receiving the product from the sender via the carrier.
Typically, a sender places a product to be shipped in a container or package for shipment, attaches an address label indicating the identity of the receiver and the receiver's address, and leaves the container with the product in a designated place for pickup by the carrier for delivery to the receiver. A driver of a carrier vehicle typically obtains the container with enclosed product at the pickup location, and uses a handheld wireless device to enter relevant data from the shipping label into a tracking system so that the fact that the container and product has been picked up by the carrier can be recorded. The driver then loads the container with its product in the vehicle, and transports same to a hub for sorting and distribution to the next location along the route designated for the package by the carrier's internal routing and control systems. From this hub, the container can be directly delivered to the receiver's location if the delivery is to a receiver in the same vicinity as the sender. Alternatively, the container with the product can be transported via aircraft, train, or a wheeled vehicle to another hub nearer to the receiver's location. It is possible that the container with product can be transported through one or more intermediate hubs before reaching the hub serving the receiver location. A delivery vehicle then transports the container and product therein along the final leg of its route to the receiver's location to complete delivery of the product in its container. The receiver can then open the container and retrieve the product for its own use, or can deliver or sell the product to another person in the distribution chain to the end user of the product.
For the purpose of routing, tracking, and billing for shipment of a product, a carrier can maintain computerized shipping records identifying the sender, the sender's shipping account to be charged for the product shipment, the sender's address, the receiver, the receiver's address for delivery, the level of service selected for shipping the product (i.e., overnight delivery, next-day delivery, two-day delivery, etc.), the weight and dimensions of the container and enclosed product which can be used for logistics planning and billing for the product shipment, special handling instructions for the product, and possibly other information. Some carriers provide the capability to track a shipped product in transit from the sender to the receiver. This provides the benefit of permitting the sender and receiver to determine the status of the shipped product while it is within the carrier's transportation and storage network.
In addition to providing peace of mind to the sender and/or receiver as to the location and status of the product within the carrier's transportation and storage network at any given time, such tracking information can permit the receiver to project when the product will arrive at the receiver's location. The receiver can thus plan activities that are contingent upon receipt of the product, such as the availability of machinery and labor for handling the product, etc. In addition, tracking information permits the sender or receiver to verify that certain actions, such as shipping or delivery of the product, have in fact been taken. This can be useful for verifying compliance (or determining noncompliance) with a contract between the sender and receiver. Such tracking information can also be useful to interested third parties such as insurers, guarantors, or banks, who can have an interest in a product shipment.
To access tracking information, some carriers permit use of a tracking identifier, generally included as a string of alphanumeric characters or bar code, on the shipping label. A customer or other interested party can access such tracking information by contacting a customer service representative of the carrier by telephone and providing the tracking identifier to such representative. The representative can then use the tracking identifier to reference the computerized shipping records via a network internal to the carrier to provide the requested product status information to the customer. Alternatively, some carriers permit customers to directly access shipment tracking information by using a web-based device to access the carrier's computer system via the Internet.
Despite the wide variety of goods shipped by a carrier, most items are transported in a routine manner according to standard shipping procedures developed by the carrier. In other words, despite the various sizes and types of containers and products that can be shipped by a carrier, the containers and their products are handled in the same general way using the same integrated system of hubs with sorters, conveyors, loading and unloading locations, storage areas, and transportation vehicles. However, in some cases, the nature of some products can require a carrier to apply special handling or exception processing during the transporting of such products from a sender to a receiver. The term “special handling” encompasses a variety of operations in which particular products (or a shipment of products) are identified and separated from routine product shipments to be handled differently from routine product shipments in the shipping carrier's transportation and storage system. Such special handling can include, for example, transporting sensitive, explosive, hazardous, or toxic products in a special way. Such handling can be mandated by applicable law or regulation for shipment of the product, can be necessary in order to comply with a customer's request for handling the product, or can be necessary due to the carrier's internal policies or experiences with products of a particular nature. For example, the carrier can be asked by a customer or third party to verify that a refrigerated container holding biological material is functioning at various points along the container's shipping route.
Maintaining the integrity of a product in its protective container throughout transport can be critical to use of the contained product by the receiver or end user. For example, wine typically needs to be maintained within a certain temperature range in order to preserve a desired taste. Therefore, a carrier can be requested to handle a package containing wine with extra care or to inspect the package at one or more points along its route to assure continued viability of the product. For example, the carrier can transport a wine shipment in a temperature-controlled container. By checking a temperature gauge associated with the container at various points along the transportation route designated for the wine product in the carrier's logistics network, proper handling of the product can be inferred from gauge readings confirming the product to be at a permissible temperature.
However, such technique does not inform or alert the carrier and customer as to whether proper environmental conditions were or were not maintained during the times the product was in the carrier's logistics network between checkpoints. Therefore, unbeknownst to either the carrier or customer, it is possible that the receiver can be provided with a product shipment that was subjected to an environmental condition that makes it unfit for use by the receiver or end user. Thus, exposure to an environmental condition can damage or destroy the product shipment, or possibly even render it dangerous to the receiver or end user. Furthermore, continuing to ship a product that has been rendered unfit for the receiver's or end user's purposes by exposure to an environmental condition can result in a substantial waste of transportation, labor, financial, and other resources of the carrier and/or the customer.
Therefore, a need exists in the art for a method and system for processing packages that require transport according to one or more prescribed environmental conditions. The method and system should provide a way of verifying whether or not certain environmental conditions are maintained throughout the shipping process for a product. Additional benefits could be obtained if the system and method could react to exposure of a product to an environmental condition rendering it unfit, to avoid unnecessary use of the carrier's or other's resources.